She leaned against the shelf. "Maybe because you're searching for a category of love, not the love itself. You're trying to map a coastline with a ruler."

He should have flagged the error and moved on. Instead, he walked to her library.

One rainy Tuesday, the system flagged an anomaly. A user named "Elara Vance" had a 97% compatibility score with… no one. Her data was a ghost in the machine. According to every category Leo had coded, she had no logical romantic storyline. She didn't fit.

One night, he ran the Compass one last time. He added a new, unscientific category: "The person who makes you question your own rules."